Today, on the eve of Valentine’s Day, I am thinking about love. One of the hazards of professional ministry, I suppose, is that we pastors and preachers spend a lot of time pondering the origins of stories— Biblical, historical, and personal stories. Where did this account come from, and why do we commemorate it quite like we do? Tomorrow, many of us will exchange cards, chocolate, and flowers with those we love, and there’s nothing wrong with that! However, we’ve come a long way from the reason for the original Feast Day of Saint Valentine.
Valentine was a third-century Roman clergyman, likely a priest or bishop, who ministered among Christians persecuted by the Roman empire. For his good work and charity, he was executed on February 14 in the year 269 and buried in Umbria in what is now central Italy. The association of Valentine with romantic love is largely due to the 14th-century work of English writer Geoffrey Chaucer. Over time, he became the patron saint of love, people with epilepsy, and beekeepers. His name, Valentine, was popular in late antiquity and is derived from the Latin word, valens, which means worthy, strong, and powerful.
There are countless reasons to celebrate romantic love, no doubt, but as people of faith at this moment in time, I hope we will also remember the sacrificial, charitable love of the original Saint Valentine and his association with worthy, strong, and powerful love. In a time of trouble, he sought to share the love of Christ among those who were suffering.
Kate Bowler, professor at Duke Divinity School and author, has written a blessing that resonates with the call to faith, which expands our notion of love beyond feelings of deep affection to faithful action:
Lord, the shadowed world is full of troubles.
So give me the good, inconvenient work of love.
Link my life to others so that their worries become my own.
Give me errands I don’t want which ease the burdens of others.
Divert me from the plans I’ve made
to zip from A to B when you have better ideas.
Put my hands to work with a less-grumbling heart
and let their dreams drift into my own.
You’ve given me tools to use and ideas to fashion
that will bring me neither recognition, nor money, nor praise.
You’ve made love such a sneaky thing.
The more we love as you do,
the less we are keeping track of it at all.
While we celebrate the lovely exchanges that have become our Valentine’s Day traditions, let’s also be mindful of the ways Christ calls us to worthy, strong, and powerful love evident in the inconvenient works of love that ease the burdens of others.
